It's strange to me. I walk around and watch these cute leetle goth children with their shirts about voices in their heads. They have this thinking "Self, we are super cool because we pretend to have voices in our head." Or even better they think they actually do have voices: "Selves, we are gloriously mentally ill!"

I think fine fine. They want people to think or not think something about them? A-OK with me. What bugs me is when they push it in my face, by wandering around dropping their medication names as if they were close personal friends.

I've noticed that below "normal" society there lies an anti-society. It's exactly the same as the aboveground version, but it claims to be better in some way. It is, for the most part, simply a reaction to the society they are fleeing from. These are the people who read/view/listen to the original work of those who still have creative juices flowing and decide that they must emulate them. Within this there is no originality.

There are those out there who are outside both of these groups. There are also those to whom mental illness is not some silly joke, it is a reality. There are those who still have some particles of creativity within them. To them I say, carry-on the good fight. To all others i say good night.

Note: the grammar/sentence structure in the above is probably no good. It's because of this. But don't worry I'm leaving to go back to college in just an hour so I will return to my normal self in a short while.

I hear voices like the clamoring of a crowded resturaunt. A word here, a snatch of conversation there, but mostly the babble....the loud overlapping babble of it all. I occasionally see things that aren't there and occasionally become so overwhelmed by light and sound that communication with those around me become all but near impossible. These moments come and go in waves, sometimes not popping up for over a year and then experiencing several a week.

Where did it come from? A schizophrenic great-grandmother whose genes trickled down the line,saturating my grandmother, dousing my own mother, leaving me with the subtle tracings of what is normally a devasting and torturous disease. Maybe I was the lucky one for having been so far down the genetic totem pole and maybe my child will be the luckiest one to not exhibit any of these symptoms at all. It's a tricky science - this study of schizophrenia - and I can only hope......

I do not wear this on a shirt. I do not proudly proclaim my genetic disorder as a badge, as a medal, as a scar. It is a part of who I am, like my brown hair or freckled face. It is not a mark of individuality, it is a mark of my DNA. And my DNA is not what makes me unique or cool. And certainly neither is this.

I want to tell these children who wear those t-shirts that hearing voices is not cool or funny or exciting. It is a frightening experience, a losing control of your senses, an overwhelming sensitivity that makes you question your very grip on the whole of reality. You live in fear of an episode while you are at work and getting fired. How will you pay the bills? You live in anxiety wondering if people you meet will want to continue knowing you once they have seen you in the moment's grip. You fear loneliness. And most of all, you fear yourself and begin to grapple with even the most simple aspects of what you hope is reality. You question, question, question and the questioning is exhasting and time-consuming.

I am the luckiest of this particular DNA coding on my mother's side yet - the attacks are smaller, less encompassing than what my mother experiences. I have learned to seek help when they hit, learned to stay focused on one sound, one picture, one person when I am at work and have an attack. I have learned to recognize what is my mind and what is really in front of me.

But it does not make me cool. How do you explain this to those who think it is? I don't know. I do know that ever ytime I see one of those shirts, it's a toss-up between wanting to strangle them and an amused, sad smile because I do hear voices and it's nothing like they wish it were.

"Get help."

My days begin the same as all the rest of my days. Staring up at the ceiling from my bed, immobile, paralyzed.

"But who can help me?"

Thousands of self-help peptalks blend into each other, falling on the deaf ears of an immovable body. The ceiling's stark white blandness, akin to that of a nurse that has ceased to care, offers very little encouragement. Rather, it mocks me in its self-acceptance of elevated depression, daring my paralyzed hand to touch its surface.

"Just get up."

Mouth half-open in the universal expression of bemusement passively awaits my overly relaxed tongue to slip into my throat. But I'm awake, I'm too alert for that too happen. My body's own sedatives poison itself, resulting in hours spent pleading with myself to act.

"I can't and don't want to."

The dissonance is what really disturbs me. It's as though the synapses between my brain and extremities have undergone a big bang-esque expansion leaving signals to travel immutable distances to their destinations. Leaving me paralyzed in the thoughts that swarm my mind incessantly.

"Please...JUST FUCKING GET UP!"

A bottle given to me by the family physician lies on the nightstand next to my bed. Its the same white color as the ceiling, but with a aqua green and blue curved band that wraps around the label, so obviously a marketer's idea of what excitement on a bottle looks like. Almost as though they're attempting to non-verbally communicate: "Zoloft: The Wave of the Future"

But I don't bite. Not that I'm not completely captivated by the idea of having a normal existence, but right now I'm trying to get up.

Log in or register to write something here or to contact authors.